Admin role in attendance office

[Vomit1234]

anyone do/done this role? Would I be having to call parents and hassle them all the time about their child’s attendance?

or would it be more behind the scenes, keeping record etc & general admin? Job description is a bit vague

Attendance is part of my role at school as well as recording attendance onto our system I definitely have to contact parents about attendance as well as write letters and meet with parents if attendance drops below certain levels.

Yes - we have attendance officers in our school, they are based in the school office and primarily their role is to contact parents about student absences, providing support/referrals to pastoral teams. They also issue letters of concern and also produce reports with data for myself and the senior leadership team as well as heads of year.

Our AOs also support in the main school office if required also.

Thanks for your replies. @HideTheCroissants do you enjoy your job?

I love my job. I work in a lovely school. It’s a deprived area but most of children are amazing and so determined to learn. Every day is different.
I am very lucky. I’ve worked in other schools that were simply NOT lovely by any stretch of the imagination.

That’s good to know. My worry is that I would just feel awful having to continuously hassle parents when a lot of the time, they are struggling and not to blame that their child isn’t attending

Is there a reason you feel like that is the case regarding reasons for absence? I’m in a senior admin role and attendance comes under that. I chase all absentees where we haven’t been provided a reason. In the vast majority of children who are persistently absent, it is absolutely due to the parents. The children want to be at school. If they don’t, we work with the children to establish reasons and make reasonable adjustments for them (eg coming in through the office, or a few minutes earlier or later).

I work in an infant school and absolutely love my job. No day is the same and I have been given several opportunities for career progression and professional development.